Meanwhile, Lara and Joel began an abseil into a more exciting looking hole nearby [33T 411454 5283151] ‘Ghast Hohle’, another wide hole with a promising looking section after the obvious bottom. Great frustration followed after Joel sighted evidence of previous bolting, yet no evidence has yet been found referencing this online.
-And so our journey continued. A ‘pincer’ approach was adopted for dropping into the next valley, where the team of Joel and Buck followed the left, and Ella, Lara, Hamish traversed towards the right. We met in a valley below, exchanging many tales of immensely draughty holes that lead nowhere found en route. Three came of note. A snow plugged shaft of about 2 by 2 meters, with an obvious natural above [33T 411166 5283242]. Another Joel found: a strongly outwards drafting shaft with an overhang above, at least 5m deep but snow plug obscures continuation, but does not block the whole shaft [33T 411160 5283056]. ‘Ella’s draughty hole’ [33T 411159 5283234], a small almost human sized hole with a howling draught, with notable depth determined by dropping rocks. +And so our journey continued. A ‘pincer’ approach was adopted for dropping into the next valley, where the team of Joel and Buck followed the left, and Ella, Lara, Hamish traversed towards the right. We met in a valley below, exchanging many tales of immensely draughty holes that lead nowhere found en route. Three came of note. A snow plugged shaft of about 2 by 2 meters, with an obvious natural above [HW-00, 33T 411166 5283242]. Another Joel found: a strongly outwards drafting shaft with an overhang above, at least 5m deep but snow plug obscures continuation, but does not block the whole shaft [JS-04, 33T 411160 5283056, later named Gruffalo]. ‘Ella’s draughty hole’ [EM-01, 33T 411159 5283234], a small almost human sized hole with a howling draught, with notable depth determined by dropping rocks.
Now reassembled, the prospecting prophets continued up sweltering hot terrain. Formidably, the plateau didn’t have much mercy on either Ella nor Joel’s shorts. After much-a Bunda bashing, Ella’s resembled something more of denim thongs. Joel’s had also developed a tear, which for-sighted a similar trajectory.
-Thankfully, the materialisation of holes returned to being in rock, when we stumbled upon yet another possible cave, ‘Clockwork Orange’ [33T 410756 5282937]. This one had 4 different entrances, congregating in a 6 meter shaft which was dropped but choked. +Thankfully, the materialisation of holes returned to being in rock, when we stumbled upon yet another possible cave, ‘Clockwork Orange’ [JS-02, 33T 410756 5282937]. This one had 4 different entrances, congregating in a 6 meter shaft which was dropped but choked.
With an ominous overlooking of dark cloud, the final prospect of the day was prompt. We arrived at a long and thin slice, 1m wide and 6 across. This had been found previously but not dropped, named Blitz Baum Schacht [33T 410634 5283186]. Ella descended to the bottom of a 20m rope, another 5m is yet to be dropped with promising draught and possible continuation at the bottom.